


The Taste of You Upon My Tongue

by elrhiarhodan



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Chocolate, Jealousy, M/M, Paris 1590s, Pining, Student AU, Trevilieu, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29391375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: Jean-Armand de Tréville is a poor university student in Paris in 1598, who has the good fortune to share rooms with the dashing and aristocratic Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, who might just be the Devil incarnate, the way he tempts poor Jean to thoughts of sin...
Relationships: Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu/de Tréville (Trois Mousquetaires)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	The Taste of You Upon My Tongue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/gifts).



> For my dearest Kyele. Please forgive me for this. All I know of The Musketeers is your amazing fic. But our conversation this evening about hot chocolate sparked something. A story written in a single night, this doesn't happen too often, does it?

"Cold as a witch’s tit out there." Armand shakes the snow off his cloak before hanging it over the railing and does the same with his hat, a rather extravagant affair with too many plumes. 

Jean watches those feathers with hot, jealous eyes.

"What’s the matter?"

"Nothing." He turns back to his books and the essay he’s been mostly failing to write. Jean hates Aristotle with a passion he usually reserves for the Spanish and their war-mongering, world-conquering, close-minded king.

_Or -_

For the very pretty young madame who owns the millinery shop below the apartment he shares with Armand. The one who gives Armand expensive plumage for his hat in exchange for bits of erotic doggerel and kisses on the back of her smooth, plump hands. _Oh, my, you are so very naughty, Monsieur Richelieu…_

Armand drops gracefully into the chair across from Jean, and Jean can’t help but think his best friend moves about the world like he’s making love with everything he encounters. The way he leans against a wall, or sits in a chair, or strides across a room. And heaven forfend, when he mounts a horse…

Jean feels the sweat pop up along his spine at the image of Armand swinging his leg across the back of the big, black beast, ironically called Papillon, that masquerades as a horse but really is an equine-shaped demon straight from the ninth circle of Hell.

(Jean might have spent too many nights trying not - and failing miserably - to touch himself while thinking of Armand in boots and gloves and riding leathers fighting to control Papillon.)

Instead of thinking about Armand in riding leathers, mounted on a horse, Jean focuses on Aristotle’s ridiculous logic. Except Armand smells like leather and horse and snow and Jean wants to bury his face in Armand’s curls and drink that scent forever.

"If you don’t tell me what is bothering you, I’m not going to share my prize with you."

Jean looks up. "Prize?"

"Yes, prize. Why I ventured out on such a hellish night. Bernajoux got a delivery and told me that if I didn’t pick it up tonight, he was going to give it all to Boisrenard. Apparently, Boisrenard has an extremely talented mouth."

Jean blinks. Did Armand say what Jean thought he’d heard him say?

Armand grins.

Apparently, yes.

"What is it?"

Armand reaching into his doublet and pulls out a small, wrapped package. "Here, take a sniff."

Jean, who has never been able to say no to Armand about anything, does as his friend commands. The scent is indescribable. It makes his mouth water and and his head spin. "What is it?" he hands the package back to Armand before his runs from the room, stealing the prize for himself.

"Chocolate. The fucking Spanish are apparently good for something."

Jean has heard of the beverage from the New World. It is all the rage in the royal and ducal courts, and he’d never dreamed he’d get a chance to taste it. "How did Bernajoux get his hands on this? It’s not even available in the best shops. All of it goes to the nobility."

"I was told not to ask questions. And since Bernajoux owes me several large favors, he thought to repay one of them with a bit of his contraband."

Jean nods and keeps his mouth shut. He loathes Bernajoux, mostly because the man is a leech and cheat and a user who would sell his granny to the knackers if the deal was good. But Armand knows just how to play Bernajoux and always come out with the better end of the deal. 

Something of his feelings must show on his face because Armand says, "Are you going to take that stick out of your ass about Bernajoux and share this with me, or are you going to spend the rest of the night drinking sour wine and cursing Aristotle?"

"Do you know how to prepare it?" Armand raises one very elegant eyebrow at him and Jean feels himself flushing. "Of course you do. Why should I even ask?"

"I don’t know, Jean." Armand is uncharacteristically snippy. He gets up and moves through the small room, collecting whatever he needs to make the beverage, then heads over to the fireplace. 

Jean watches as Armand heats up the last of the day’s milk, then shaves the block of chocolate into the pot with his eating knife. From somewhere, he produces a whisk and beats the milk and chocolate until he’s satisfied. The results are poured into mugs and Armand returns to the table.

He offers one to Jean with almost studied indifference. "Here."

Jean lifts the mug to his lips and he’s enveloped by the heady aroma of spice and sweetness and something that he can’t name. Before taking a sip, he breathes deeply, trying to embed the memory of this into his brain.

"Come on, drink, before it gets cold."

At Armand’s encouragement, Jean finally takes a sip. He closes his eyes and licks his lips, savoring every morsel of sensation.

"Well?" 

"This must be what Heaven tastes like." Armand laughs and Jean opens his eyes. "What?"

"That’s what I said the first time I had chocolate." Armand pulls the chair from the other side of the table and sits down next to Jean, so close they are touching from thigh to shoulder. Armand finally takes his own sip, sighs, and licks his lips.

Jean feels far too warm. The chocolate, Armand’s nearness, _everything_. He’s as dizzy as if he’s just downed a whole jug of new wine on a hot summer afternoon.

"Drink, my dear Jean. Drink and enjoy." 

"You must be the devil, to tempt me so." Jean looks at Armand, who stares back at him so intently, his gaze burning.

Armand raises his mug to his lips and tilts his head back. Jean watches him swallow, and the heat in his blood becomes a conflagration.

Hands shaking, Jean lifts his own mug and drinks, swallowing the deep, rich spicy sweetness. As he consumes the chocolate, he thinks he never wants to have this maddening drink again. The last drop drained, he places the mug on the table with care, as if he’s deeply inebriated and every move has to be managed with just the right amount of precision or everything will fall to Hell.

"Jean - "

Armand says his name and it sounds like a prayer, or a fatal wound. Jean looks up, into Armand’s eyes, burning as blue as the hottest flames and Jean can’t breathe.

"Jean."

His name, again.

Now all Jean can see are Armand’s lips, the fine ring of chocolate around the edges, and he thinks that as sweet as the liquid he’s just swallowed, the chocolate he licks off of Armand’s lips will be infinitely sweeter.

"Jean?"

His name, once more. But a question.

"Armand." An answer. Always _Armand_.

Armand smiles, and there’s something that might be madness in his eyes. "Forgive me."

"For what?"

"For this." Armand kisses him. He cups Jean’s face between his palms and kisses him as if this is their wedding, or their last moment on Earth, or Jesus has descended from Heaven and is separating the sinners from the saints.

Jean freezes, but only for a heartbeat. And that is long enough for Armand to pull back and start begging even greater forgiveness. But Jean tells Armand to shut up and grabs the front of his doublet and hauls him close. 

So he can kiss Armand to his heart’s content.

And perhaps let Armand throw him on the table and send the mugs and that fucking Aristotle to the floor and climb on top of him like he’s imagined so many times since they’d first met all those years ago.

But Armand bursts that particular fantasy with a hoarse command, "My bedroom, now."

Between biting kisses and fumbling with buttons and laces, Jean says, "My bedroom’s warmer."

Armand pauses, looks at him like he’s weighing some vastly important fate. Then he slaps Jean on the ass. "Your room, get naked. I’ll be there in a moment. Have to fetch something."

Jean, who is rarely this obedient, does as Armand commands without argument (just this once), and is almost completely undressed when Armand comes into his bedroom, holding a small glass jar. Jean doesn’t ask.

But Armand volunteers, a touch diffidently, "Goosefat. It will make things … easier. I promise I’ll go slowly."

Jean shivers. He’s not quite a _virgin_. Well, still a virgin in body, but not in mind.

"What are you thinking, my dear Jean?"

"That I am glad I am very well read."

Armand lets out a shout of laughter, so utterly carefree, so utterly unlike him that it takes Jean’s breath away.

Jean finally gets his boots off and laces undone and his breeches hit the floor. He’s naked and aroused and Armand is still fully dressed, and Jesus weeps, but Jean doesn’t know what to do. "Armand?"

Armand nearly rips his clothes off and pushes Jean onto the bed. "I love you, Jean. I’ve loved you since you knocked me over on the very first day of class. I’ve wanted you forever and I’ve been so afraid you’ve not felt the same."

Jean wonders when the church bells all over Paris started ringing. "But I’ve loved you. Every moment, even when you’ve fucked your way through half of Paris. I’ve been so jealous." Jean buries his face in Armand’s shoulder, dizzy from too much emotion.

And then nothing matters. Armand’s arms are around him, his hands - strong and callused - are stroking his back. "No one else, never more. Just you. Your lips are the only lips I will kiss from now until my dying breath."

Jean leans up and looks at Armand, "Don’t, don’t talk of death - not when we haven’t even begun to live."

Armand kisses him. "That is true. And even worse, not when we haven’t even fucked."

Jean can’t stop the laugh. "You really are the devil’s own…"

Armand rolls him over, slotting their bodies together. "You’re just figuring that out?"

__

FIN


End file.
